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Friday, December 11, 2009

First Line Challenge

Are you ready to get your creative juices flowing! I will give you a sentence (or part of a sentence) from the opening of a famous book. Your job is to turn it into a paragraph that is totally unique, and totally you!

Authors and characters are all welcome to try this little exercise. Let's see how many different perspectives we can create.

Bonus points for anyone who can identify the book the sentence(s) are from. Last week's line was from The Hobbit. Okay, are you ready? Here we go...

24 comments:

Nutmeg Cross
said...

...and the camel had had enough. He'd savored the last drops of his water reserve yesterday, and he was thirsty. Extremely thirsty. So, as much as feared leaving his home in the desert, he knew it was time to head for the ocean. If only he knew how to make salt water drinkable.

Olivia, the gods most certainly do exist. The problem is finding one that will actually help you out. Most won't bother, no matter what kinds of praise and sacrifice you make, so I can understand your atheism.

Most gods aren't very powerful these days, either. The more humans believe, the more powerful they become. Unbelievers such as you are the reason the gods have become weak. It's not such a bad thing, depending on the god in question.

Thank you for not believing in Thor. You're a great help to me. He's a jerk.

and what had once been a lush green planet had become as a dried walnut where nothing moved and even the sun had become tired of shining on it. Only the moon remembered better times when lovers had looked up with adoration in their eyes and poets had written of her beauty. At night she caressed earth hoping to bring it back to life with her tears, and during the day she cursed the sun for drying the little moisture she had been able to leave behind. Then, one night she remembered that she had heard that there were other moons in other galaxies. If she could get them to weep with her, perhaps they could bring the world back to life and lovers would worship her again. Without another thought she left the stars in charge of her part of the sky and swept off on her quest.

Well, I've never read this one, but I've seen the movie. Actually, I've fallen asleep watching the movie. Like, three times - before I finally managed to watch the whole thing. Is the book as, uh, soothing as the film?

The drought had lasted now for ten million years...and the few who controlled access to the springs had grown bloated with power and greed. The five Houses of Relief were not so much dynasties of decadence but of despair.

...and the Hollowites were still chugging along. As someone had surmised long ago, the underground rivers had yet to dry up. They'd just moved deeper into the caves below southern Kentucky, as had the Hollowites. With all the sorrow and despair aboveground, it was best to follow the water and get as far from the surface as possible. The only drawback to their subterranean isolation was the pesky side effect of paleness, near-blindness, and claustrophobia. Yes, as had been feared, the Hollowites had finally become the mole people of legend. Darn you, H.G. Wells, and your silly Morlocks!

... Thassodar was beginning to lose hope that it would rain. As the Terra Ranger assigned to the planet, it was his duty to make patrols to monitor the local sub-space sentient species and to investigate any non-local phenomenon. The Hadeons weren't ready for interplanetary tourism, even, and forget actual social exchanges. He climbed onto the armored creature they used for transportation and wrapped the cloths tightly around his face. One almost never saw the natives, but he couldn't risk being spotted as someone from off-planet. He scanned the dust-blown horizon and settled on moving east today. He placed the water-rifle to his shoulder and fired a shot. The droplet of water couldn't even be seen as it covered the sandy distance, 1,000 yards across the once-rich soil of the valley. The beast under him shuddered, smelling the water, and took off at a fast clip toward the water-bullet.

...or that was how it seemed to Bob, eying the female patrons of the run-down bar on Cherry Street. He'd tried it all--Mr. Nice Guy, The Jerk, Mr. Sympathetic, even stooped to wearing a pink shirt and discussing fashions. Nothing could break this drought, and he prepared himself for one more lonely night. That was, until she walked into the room.